Jean AKA Jeannie AKA Jeanie, is a film, book and magazine reviewer for a national magazine. Most of Jean’s work is done through e-mail, which means he does not have to go into the office.
On a trip to find a gift for his girlfriend, Jean found a empty Genie Bottle. Upon picking up this bottle Jean became the bottle’s new genie powered occupant. Not only was Jean turned into a genie, but the bottle turned him into what he believed a genie of the bottle to look like, which due to his fascination with a classic 60s TV show turned into a bust young Blonde female.

Considering she doesn’t have anyone to hear it, I’d recommend the Rubber Ducky debugging technique. What you do is you get a Rubber Duck, you tell it your code, or in Jeanie’s case your plan, step by step in intricate detail about everything it does until you realise what’s wrong with it.

They are the ones who took the picture in panel 422. Given they are looking at the back of the camera they are probably wondering how the brunette is who was hitting on Jean disappeared from the picture.

Good spot. Did you also notice that the photographer is Debbie, and the other woman is the third ex-lover of Jean who confronted “Jeannie Bottle” along with Debbie (the redhead with her now) and Tina the editor’s daughter? (Tina was with them again when “Veronica” made her try.)

I wonder if Jean is going to change again, this time right in front of Debbie and the photographer?

BTW, Playboy did have a centerfold photographer who was also a centerfold model. She was with the magazine for a long time.

Jeanie even knows that Rodge isn’t really a writer and that he doesn’t work for a magazine, yet she builds a plan on giving him the idea of flattering his him a writer and giving him a chance to show off a talent he doesn’t have.

Most likely it’s what his shoulder voices and real Neil told Rodge that got him “out of character”. Rodge is trying to not be on Jean’s “bad side” as far as he knows. It’s starting to look like Jean’s scheme is for “naught-y”.

@Robert: Re: Natalie; That’s as good a theory as I can think of. This is just such a 180-degree turnaround for Rodge, that I’m starting to think that it can’t be something as simple as taking Neil’s warning to heart. Rodge has never been conscientious before, even to the point of almost losing his job; what suddenly gave him a brain?

I thought this sequence was meant to show that while Rodge is a pickup-artist, he is not a total jerk. Sleep with a woman who is amenable to his flirtations? Sure. Dupe someone into sex by lying about being able to make their dreams come true? Apparently not.

OK, Tom, that’s true. But he has no such responsibility-inducing encumbrances now. I’m just having a hard time reconciling the uninhibited Rodge of the Las Vegas trip, (and, for that matter, of the encounters with Natalie) with the squeaky-clean straight arrow we’re seeing now. It would be one thing if he seemed to be struggling with temptation at all, but he’s totally NOT. He’s acting more like he’s on tranquilizers.

Rodge is trying to play his “role” as Jean. The problem is Rodge has never met Jean and has no idea what Jean is like. Jeanie, describing her former self to Rodge, probably describe her self image to him, which is much better person than actual Jean is. So end result, Rodge makes Jean a better person than Jean.

It suddenly occurs to me that the reason the women in the background are looking at that camera is that “Veronica” isn’t showing up on the picture taken two strips back. Maybe genies not showing up on cameras is going to be canon here. Or maybe the camera is showing Jean’s true nature, either as “Jeannie” or as Jean as he was. Two Jeans in the picture would certainly be worth some wonderment.

I like the True Nature angle, but with an added twist. Rodge shows up as Rodge and not Jean, and veronica shows up as Jeannie. So Jeans True Nature is now Jeannie (much to her horror), and it looks like she is hitting on someone who is not her fiancé.

From the way Rodge has been talking and acting, he seems preoccupied. Maybe he’s been up all night since his “road to Damascus” moment with Neil and Natalie, rethinking his life?. And what’s that in his hand? An itinerary? I doubt if it’s his tab from brunch; Rodge does not strike me as the type that checks and rechecks these things.

On the camera front, the photographer might have taken some shots of “Jean” and his “fiancée” the evening before, and perhaps she and Debbie are looking them over now.

Before Jean and Rodge left, didn’t Neil warn Rodge to be very careful around Jeanine? Rodge knows how dangerous she can be. Could it be that he somehow recognizes Jean as Betty or Veronica, that he’s just suspicious of beautiful women he’s never met hitting on him so hard, worried that they could be Jean and could be up to something, even if he doesn’t knw what.

As far as Jean is concerned is she “cussing mad” in the last panel because her plan isn’t working or because she cant seduce Rodge? If the latter, she could really go for broke and try something not in public view.

Jean still thinks of herself as a man, I think. If she’s not careful, though, she could get caught in a version of that old joke about the girl who spoke so slowly that, by the time she told her date that she wasn’t that kind of girl, she WAS that sort of girl. She might come to her senses half way into a seduction and stop things fro going any further, but she’d still know that — up to that point — she HAD been willing.

I never thought we’d top the level of stupidity Jean went to when he… she… whatever 😛 got stuck as a little kid.

But hello again…

Even if Rodge wasn’t ‘keeping himself for Natalie’ (someone needs to get a chart for him and point out that Natalie doesn’t really exist 😛 ) he’s too dumb to catch that there’s ANOTHER Genie already living in his house 😛 the guy is NOT a brains trust. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have a JOB if he wasn’t best friends with a guy who actually knows how to work 😛

Caley isn’t living with Rodge any more, so Araceli isn’t living in Rodge’s place. They live with Caley’s parents in Orlando, remember?

We don’t really know Rodge’s backstory, but it seems most likely Neil didn’t know Rodge until he moved to Cocoa Beach. We do know that Neil and Jean are from Cincinatti, Ohio, which is far, far away from the sun and surf of the Florida coast in more than distance.

Roger Healey, Rodge’s IDOJ counterpart, was the least believable regular character of the series. He was just a buffoon. He wasn’t even from the right service; all the real astronauts of that era were Air Force or Navy fliers, usually test pilots but Healey was given an Army uniform. If we’re looking for some realism in our Rodge the spacecraft engineer, we must assume he has some chops for his job, but tends to get distracted by things like beautiful women who are clearly out of his league. This, of course, makes our Rodge even more hopeless with women than either Dilbert or Wally (both of whom were seen in that trip to Las Vegas.)

BTW, however flaky Jean is in other aspects, Jean shares one virtue with Neil: Both of them are competent at and serious about their jobs.

Okay, fine, he couldn’t even catch on that there WAS another Genie living in his house 😛

Also, I was talking about RODGE not having a job if it wasn’t for Neil – not JEAN not having a job. We’ve seen earlier in the series that Rodge is reliant on Neil’s work and good record with their company.

Looks like in Jeans mind a cute girl willing to do any thing to break into the business is a easy mark. The scumbag in him is really showing it self. Nice to see Rodger is made of better stuff than Jean.
Too bad Jean won’t learn any thing from this. I wonder how many more single minded attempt Jeanie will make to sway Rodgers.

Not sure if it is on purpose or not but Jean/Jeanie has some very Dangerous personality traits.
I am not judging and i think it makes for a better character but this is what i see after reading this comic for years.
grandiose self-perception
impulsive and irresponsibility
can’t take responsibility for her actions
disregard for the consequences of her actions on others.
The last one mostly has to do with turning people into a girls and forgetting to fix it but sending Neil as a girl in sexy underwear and nothing else out in the middle of the night was bad to.
As a character she makes a great prime motivator for the comic. But in real life she would be someone to stay under the radar from.
I love the comic and hope it goes on for years before CD runs out of idea’s to write about.

Ok… ok… why am I seeing Betty and Veronica from the Archie comics? Who’s next jean? Cheryl? Ethal? Jughead!? I’m just happy to see something coming into play about narcissistic characters for a narcissistic person like jean. ^_^

Naa he is crushing on Nat even though he knows it is Neil. Seriously though a great looking girl that is sexy and super smart how couldn’t he.
These narcissist and air headed characters Jeanie is trying to use on him have no chance. Jeanie is seeing Rodger as Jean and these are the type of girls Jean liked. which makes me wonder why he was with Bell.

Why did Rodge really reject the advances of “Veronica” and “Betty”? Here’s how I see it:

“Veronica” comes off as just too aggressive and /dominant. There are men who like that (I’m one) but not Rodge.

“Betty” comes off as really young to me. Rodge took care to steer her toward a couple of women–pretty much like I imagine he would handle Caley when she gets a little older. Which makes me think that if Caley is still crushing on Neil when she hits puberty, Rodge might have a “talk” with his friend.